


Breathe

by ninhursag



Category: Homicide: Life on the Street
Genre: Angst, Juvenilia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-01-23
Updated: 1998-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This would take place immediately after Have a Conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Still 19/20 when I wrote this.

He's made me walk for hours, I think. Hours. The raw edges of the sky and the emptiness of the streets means it's early tomorrow. I made it until a tomorrow again.

Yesterday an old man got brutally, viciously, pointlessly murdered, and I failed him. I'm supposed to be this great big shot homicide detective, this speaker for the dead, but I'm worth the same thing that old man was worth. Sidewalk spit. Nothing. And Meldrick is staring at me as if I might pull a gun from the air and finish what I started on the boat. Maybe I would if I could. We're coming up to the boat now, and I can't think of a word to say.

I let him inside in blank, awkward silence. I'm surprised he's coming in with me, I'd have expected him to go home now. But he comes inside and I offer to make coffee, so I don't have to look at him. Something else to do again. As I move toward the kitchen he gives me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. And maybe it's one of those life affirming instincts that they talk about in those last few minutes of fuzzy good shit at the end of the miles of bad on the six o'clock news. The stray touch sets my flesh on fire.

If he touches me again I just want to die. Ha, ha funny, right? I mean, less than two fucking hours ago my partner pulled a gun out of my mouth, you'd think I'd have bigger problems then the way he makes everything inside me melt into some goddamn disaster.

I do, I guess. Have bigger problems that I can't solve. That maybe nothing can solve, that I can't stand to think about. Everything in my head is a tangled mess. But I know the heat of his skin, just inches away from mine, I know… I wish he would touch me again, just to keep away the terrible aloneness. I'm sure if it were Juliana here instead of him I'd feel just the same about her skin. I'm sure of it… but Juliana left me and Meldrick stayed.

He's watching me, the smallest frown on his face, he's watching me, wondering how I could have almost done this to him. To him! Because after Crosetti, another partner committing suicide would be the worst kind of personal insult to Meldrick. If he touched me again, even casually, I would die or come in my pants or something, just from that… just that.

I wish he would touch me again. He's all proud of himself now, because he saved me. What a fucked-up joke. He's got my gun and he's made me walk around on a ass numbingly cold winter night, and now he's saved me. Soon, he'll walk out the door and I'll be all alone. Then I'll pull my extra gun from my night table and finish this stupid farce once and for all.

If I weren't gonna be dead soon, I'd scare myself thinking shit like this. About his caramel colored skin and the plushness of his lips, and how much I wish someone would touch me and make me feel connected again. To reality, to life, whatever.

Whatever. Shit. Stop staring at me Meldrick. Just go. I can't tell him that, can't push the words from between my lips so I wrap his jacket more tightly around my shoulders and stare at the coffee machine. His jacket, like I was his shivering girl friend, he gave me his jacket.

He stands up suddenly, walking so so slow, but steady until he's only inches from me. Oh, don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me. Please…

Meldrick's fingers reach out, hovering just inches from my face, and I think my mind must be transparent, like I was… Bayliss or something. He knows these perverse things I'm thinking about him, he knows and he's going to wish he'd let me die. He's going to let me die.

His finger's brush against my jaw so lightly I know I must have imagined the touch the instant it passes. He's going to fucking kill me if he touches me again. This I know, like I knew he thought I was dirty, or at least never quite brought himself to believe in my innocence.

My innocence?

Don't touch me, Meldrick. Four words. But I can't say it, my lips are paralyzed. I look down, away, not able to bear whatever I might see in his face. He grazes my jaw, grabs my chin and forces my eyes up. For an instant I see a reflection of my own confusion. More lies. Maybe.

"Look at me, Mikey," he whispers, so low, so low, it rustles across my skin. "I'm not going to lose you, understand. No matter what it takes." He kisses me then. How did he know? How did he know that if he kissed me right then my resistance would be so shattered I couldn't help but melt against his mouth? That I would part my lips like some stupid slut before his greedy mouth, and let his tongue have its fill of me?

When he kisses me I want to die. I don't have the breath to say no, to say yes, to say help me, save me, please. Please, Meldrick, fucking please.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I ask. The words are so far away, they can't possibly be my words. He touches my lips and stares at me, trapping me with his pained, fearful eyes.

"I don't know," he tells me. I nod, accepting his answer as the truth .

Now I have to tell him to stop before he shatters whatever's left of me.

"Kiss me again," I whisper. He smiles gently and he does, and my lips are so warm now, so overwhelmingly unbearably warm and I'm so cold inside I feel like nothing can reach that frozen place. Because an old man is dead and I can't avenge him. Because everything I ever wanted to be feels like nothing tonight. Because if I let Meldrick make love to me now, what the hell will be left of the person I thought I was?

He kisses me and I disintegrate. The last bit of me who laughed and joked about worshiping fun. Who looked in the mirror and never had to think too hard about the integrity of the man staring back. I can't blame it on Meldrick, he's just going to give it all the coup de grace.

"Mikey…" he hisses and covers my face with his mouth, with his kisses, with his desire. I let him pull me into the bedroom and lay me out on the bed. My bed. He wants to have me in my own bed. And I'm so hard, all my clothing is too tight and these jeans are just gonna spilt open. Just gonna split, that's what.

This is so wrong. This is just so good, the way he pulls my clothing off, article by article, peeling cloth away from my quivering flesh.

I love the way his hands move, big hands on my body, a little clumsy with inexperience touching another guy's body, but still sweet. It feels like he wants to burn me alive, to just climb under my skin the way he strokes me, kissing and fondling, teasing me. His mouth and hands are everywhere, and I'm so cold, but I can't help responding. Weird, as many times as I've made love to women I don't think anyone has ever made love to me like this, with this overwhelming possessiveness that seems to seep from his every touch.

For some reason I never thought being made love to by a man would be so easy, so gentle. I should have, Meldrick is much more gentle with his lovers than with his co-workers. He says my name over and over and over again as our hands roam each other's bodies, learning all the secret places under the skin that turn the whole world into fire.

It's only after it's over and we rest in each others' arms that I make my worst mistake.

"I love you, Meldrick," I tell him, quietly without fanfare.

He twists away to look at me and shakes his head. "You're just upset, Mikey. You don't know what you saying."

Meldrick spends the rest of the night on the couch.

 

 

In the morning he can't look me in the eye. He stares at his feet, tells me he hopes I feel better and then goes home to his wife. I should have known that would happen, should have been detective enough to anticipate. And somewhere I've lost whatever spark of courage it would take to actually pull the damned trigger.

Maybe it will be better tomorrow, maybe he'll want to touch me again. I ain't holding my breath.


End file.
